# Ant Colonies Retain Memories That Outlast the Lifespans of Individuals | Science | Smithsonian

<https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ant-colonies-retain-memories-outlast-lifespans-individuals-180971022/>

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- Saved: December 16, 2018 (2018-12-17T03:29:20Z)
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## What Jamie wrote

Insect colonies do some pretty incredible things:

> The Finnish myrmecologist Rainer Rosengren showed that when the ants emerge in the spring, an older ant goes out with a young one along the older ant’s habitual trail. The older ant dies and the younger ant adopts that trail as its own, thus leading the colony to remember, or reproduce, the previous year’s trails.

My [book club](https://rwbook.club/) read [Ant Encounters](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8895494-ant-encounters) several years ago and it had several incredibly interesting insights into how ant colonies work and learn.

## Facts

- Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/)

## Appears in

- [WT85: Weekly Thing #85 / Dec 22, 2018](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/85/), Featured Links 🏅

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## Elsewhere

- Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ant-colonies-retain-memories-outlast-lifespans-individuals-180971022/